My head felt crowded, jammed full of cotton instead of flickers of creativity. My eyes were hot and burning, like the tear ducts had closed up shop for the evening. This sickness was finally showing me who was boss.

All was quiet in the house--it felt safe, at least for the moment. I turned off the lamp and crawled beneath the sheets. My bedtime story was a podcast from fellow writer/blogger Jeff Goins. Jeff and host Erik Fisher chatted for nearly an hour on how to BE what it is that you DO. Of course, this was intriguing to me coming from Jeff because, although his might not be a household name, his passion and insight on this craft resonate.

I wasn't feeling well, and I admit that I slept through half of the podcast, waking up only when my husband stormed into the room and threw on the lights, not knowing or not caring I was asleep (his own personal battle with his work vehicle wasn't going well, watchout!). Before I initially drifted off to sleep, though, Jeff stressed a point that has been tugging at me all day.

Writers write.

Writers write everyday.

It's a difficult thing, to have someone's story unfolding in your mind and to keep it captive. Maybe no one else on this planet cares about the story like I do, but to keep it inside, well, that's an injustice to the whole kaleidoscope of characters who are living and interacting in my imagination. Their voices deserve to be heard as much as you and I. My heart grows heavier each day that passes and they remain real people in much too small of a space.

That might be a hard thing for you to grasp, especially if you're the kind of person who has struggled to so much as write your name on a check post-high school. You have passions likely so different from mine, which is the beauty of being created as individuals. I'm glad that some of you cannot rest until you've painted a landscape or mastered that concerto. Words are my medium, and I'm still fumbling around with them like I'm all thumbs.... but I'll continue to try to make something from them each day until I can no longer string them together.